Stairway to Powell (Wairarapa) West Taratahi, North Island, New Zealand
By cartertonic on 15-Oct-14. Waypoint GC5ADDV

I started my tramp to Donnelly Flat and went further to the River Ridge Track.I had planned to do just a small loop, but when I arrived at Mountain House Shelter I decided to go for the summit and get my 800 caches today.So up to summit on a cloudy and rainy day. When I arrived at the top I was completely wet, so now all the way back to the carpark.In the end my trousers were almost dry again TFTC#798

Quick find and needed the breather after the steps! Chilling breeze up here. Thanks again CartertoniC

Woo-hoo!! Thanks for workout cartertonic!! Glad to take a rest here. Cache dry and nicely protected by rocks under the steps... TNLNSL TFTC Giving it an FP for the climb and location up in the clouds !!

Glad to pause herehanging out to end the torture and arrive at the hut! Thanks

Did powell hut as a day trip. Unfortunately the trip ended in the clouds, wich was not the view I hoped for but nice on its own way! Cheers from belgium!

Thanks for the cache and greetings from Czechia

Missed it on the way up but got it on the way back down. TFTC

Stairs, stairs, stairs and more stairs... 12 sets of them, each getting steeper as they go... at least we knew we were getting closer to the hut. Headed up there with KiwiKatieG, RedPandaNZ and DJB. TFTC

Pen stopped working just as my legs did haha!

The sixth find for Miss Eight and me on our two-night tramp around the Holdsworth-Jumbo loop. Found just where the hint said, after a quick search. Thanks!

#10,876. Todays mission was a day trip up to Powell Hut to get another 800m+ elevation climb for the DGSC challenge cache. Just got three to go to complete the altitude challenge. So headed over early today from Wellington. Getting to the business end of todays hike and the legs are starting to complain. So many steps. Made for giants its seems. I tried to avoid them wherever possible. My legs have reached the point where its 20 steps up, pause, 20 steps up pause etc. So very pleased to be able to sit down here, have a drink and a snack bar and take in the stunning views. Totally calm and mild conditions. There was a glider soaring overhead while I sat here. Cache was an instant find in a logical spot. Signed the logbook and replaced the cache where found. Thanks cartertonic for hiding a cache here. Favourite for a great spot for a cache and giving me an excuse for a decent rest. Its now 5 hours and 30 minutes since I left the carpark. About an hour and a half of that spent diverting off the main route to find geocaches.

Great spot for a rest. Nice one

Today some friends and I are heading up to Powell Hut, hoping that tomorrow the weather will be good enough for us to make the crossing over to Jumbo. I've only ever been as far as Mountain House Shelter before, so I'm looking forward to this trip.

In the meantime it also gives me a chance to look for some caches that have been placed since I was last here almost 2 years ago, as well as try to avenge some previous DNF's from that trip.

I had walked ahead of my muggle friends to give myself time to search for this cache before they caught up. I left my pack down at the big rocky outcrop and walked up less encumbered to find this one but I needn't have worried as it was a quick find in the end. I can report that the cache is in great condition, and it was soon sporting my name in the log. Then I had to walk back down to my pack knowing that I would have to walk right past this point again. Oh the joys of caching with muggles lol!

Thanks for placing this cache.

Nicely tucked away! The views from this point are incredible! Cache is in good condition despite the snow about

Great weather, clear as anything, TFTC!

On a trip up to Powell with some girl guides, tftc

Found it
Cache in place, logbook in good condition.
TFTC!

Found, tftc. Made it this far and to the hut just before the weather took over and interrupted the view. Easy find, the new to caching member of our group found it. Did not have a pen handy so signed on way out the next day.

So many stairs!
This cache provided excellent motivation to climb them all!
Initially the GPS pointed us to a different set of steps, and we were too tired to search for long, however as we continued on I gave my GPS one last glance and realised how close we were. It was quickly found by the others, without having to search too hard.
Thanks for the cache!

Was too tired and cold last time I came through here a year or so ago so good to have the time today to stop and get a smilee for this one. Fantastic views up here today with a cloudless sky. tftc

Had a great walk, beautiful day. TFTC

Not quite as wet as what it was on Saturday! Still very foggy so no views. Straightforward find. TFTC

A very easy find today as the cache was in the open and at high risk of blowing away today. I don't recall quite so many steps on this trail on my last visit to Powell. Perhaps that's because many of them were under snow. Or perhaps it is because, after reading the cache description, I decided to count all the wooden stairs today. From the beginning of the Gentle Annie trail until I was standing on the deck of Powell Hut I counted 797 wooden steps (although I may have miscounted not long after leaving Mountain Shelter). I certainly didn't use each step today and I reckon there is about 500 too many. My knees currently agree. A cold and very, very windy day at GZ today, but this certainly kept away the muggles. Have grabbed the TB and will send it off to the other side of the world in a few weeks. TFTC

Got this on the way back down after turning back from doing the Jumbo circuit. Gale force winds not far above the Hutt. Tftc.

Easy cache. Terrible weather. Left suncatcher geocoin for a better day

Log trackable

Nice quick find during a Holdsworth Jumbo loop. Boy, were we sick of steps by the time we reached the Hut! This cache was a welcome respite from the grind, cheers.

Out this weekend tramping in the Tararua Forest Park via the Waiohine Gorge and Mount Holdsworth. A nice and straightforward find, although it was incredibly windy up here with the path being so exposed! TFTC!

Quick find on the way out this morning after completing the loop. TFTC!

Found on way down from Holdsworth. Some snow about this low. Cache all good. TFTC

New snow was too deep so found this without too much trouble. TFTC

Windy!! Had to hang on to find this one, and then retreat to the shelter of a nearby bush to write the log. A good hide which helped to make some fun of the infamous steps. Easier to find on the way down, in the company of theferrett and Pedagogue. TFTC

Windy night. Found on walk out. Tftc

#2050 A great day out with Yeetrees and the CO in search of a first on the new Holdsworth Junction

Thanks CartertoniC for another cache today. Coords spot on

Getting windy up here - very glad to quickly find this and move on! TFTC, we're almost there.....

Cache # 3,145 - this one took a bit longer to find than it should have, but that was partially due to being wet by now from the light rain/mist and tired from the slog up the hill towards Powell Hut. Did this with Infoferret. All well with the cache - signed and returned the log sheet without taking or leaving anything. Wish I had started counting the stairs at the bottom, just for fun. TFTC!

12th and last one for me for the day.

Quick find. Really windy today. Tftc

Found as we made our way upward on Holdsworth, destined for Powell Hut and thence to the Holdsworth-Jumbo circuit. Might we find our way to Angle Knob and beyond I wondered as I slogged uphill.
It was a warm, cloudy and humid afternoon. I was pretty warm and humid too!
As I commented in a previous log, there are a lot more steps and stairways on the Holdsworth track than when I last climbed this way. It makes the climbing more defined, less tree root hopping and hanging, but no less physical. More physical in parts perhaps.
We made a straightforward find on the cache; signed the log, and then safely re-hidden, just as found.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

Heading up to Powell Hut, and stopped here along the way, brilliant day, and all is good with the cache, TFTC

On a Scout & Venturer tramp doing the Powell/Jumbo loop for the weekend. After climbing up here on the Friday night, and then seeing a fantastic sunrise, I popped back down the stairway to collect this cache. nice and quickly found.

TFTC!

Thanks! Tftc

Found on the way up to Powell with a bunch of Scouts.
Couldn't believe we were so close to the hut, but looked to be a lot more pain before we got there.
TFTC

Found after a long tramp up the mountain. TFTC.

Thanks for this well-placed cache cartertonic. Glad I found this one walking up to Powell hut. The cache is in very good condition, especially considering the extreme weather we experienced walking out from Powell hut the next day - could hardly stand up!

Found on the climb to Powell Hut, hope we get there soon. TFTC

After a good break at Powell Hut to recover from the energy sapping & scarily windy crossing from Jumbo hut, we continued on down, relieved to finally be out of the wind.
It's amazing how quickly you can regain some energy once you start heading down hill again
No problems with the find. Left a pet rock - a butterfly. TFTC cartertonic.

Quick find on a Sunday walk to Powell. Tftc

Found this one while attempting the jumbo circuit but had to abandon that idea as there was forecast for 30cm of snow and 100kph winds. I knew that there was a geocache in between me and powell hut but was too tired to stop and get out the gps and was intending to get it on the way down. I was however lucky enough to see something that looked suspicious and it was the cache!! The cache was hidden and I doubt that a muggle would find it but to a geocacher it doesn't really get easier to find.

Got it while doing the jumbo circuit

On way down with Scouts. Tftc

Found cache going down from Powell Hut with Britannia Sea Scouts. TFTC

Quick find on the way back down from Powell. Stairs stairs and more stairs TFTC

Once you've made the effort to get there it's an easy find. The effort is well worth the climb.

Mrs B and I needed to do a walk of c. 20 kms and a climb of at least 1000m as our last training walk before heading to Southland in the hopes of walking the Hump Ridge Track. I gave her a choice of the Smith Creek loop (a bit less than that I think) or Mt. Holdsworth summit and back (a bit more) and she chose Holdsworth: she doesn't much like the Smith Creek loop. Both options meant a few caches to find.

It was a lovely sunny day, but a bit cool. We walked all the way to the summit without looking for caches in around 4 hours, with brief stops as Rocky Lookout and Mountain House and a food stop at Powell Hut. Above Powell it was VERY windy. Having read this cache description in advance I could see where the cache was going to be even without the GPSr on my way past going up...so obvious to a cacher and so invisible to a muggle . When I retrieved the cache I could tell instantly it had been set by CO, given the type of log sheet material used...where does he get it from I wonder? Solves LOTS of problems with dampness, that's for sure, and saves on plastic bags too. I was ahead of Mrs B: my knees are geriatric , but Mrs B has very short legs and struggles both up and especially down these new Powell Super Highway steps, as per the description. She found me sitting on the top step, waiting patiently for her to get the pen out of my backpack without me needing to take it off .

Glad to find another cache from CO on our first walk in the Tararuas in exactly one year to the day. TFTC

nice climb on nice day.tftc

HOTA

My highest geocache to date! Very hot and tired!

I walked up to Rocky Lookout in July last year. With some new caches further up since then, I decided to return to search these out, a day-walk. I walked up Gentle Annie to Powells Hut, Mt Holdsworth trig, and then up to Jumbo Junction for an unfound cache. I walked back down via Jumbo Hut, very steep and hard going for my old legs. I found 15 caches today on this trek. Thanks for this cache cartertonic.

WOW, another joint FTF (13:37), with agcnz, Was looking for a suitable cache to mark my milestone and thought that I might as well make it really worth the effort as it was one of those milestone that was definitely worth doing.

Was checking my stats and noted that I was close to my 8500th cache& found and it was going to happen this Friday. What a bit of bad planning!, as luck should have it a new cache was published not too far off the beaten track; actually on a well beaten track , the track is known to me on the downward leg, but up will be a new experience.... and the FTF was still up for grabs but surely not.

Decided to contact AGCNZ and see if he was interested and asked the owner if he felt like a short lunchtime walk. Both parties agreed to some light exercise & we met on the way to the Powell carpark.
Arrived at he carpark & the weather didn't look too bad, looking to the tops decided that leaving your rain coat at home is always a bad idea - even for a short walk. the Mrs will give me grief on this one!!
Mental note to self ways pack your raincoat when going for a walk, no matter how long. Decided that we would take the Atiwhakatu and then make our way to the Mountain house then up to Powell, more of a grunt but a bit shorter route, leaving the carpark at 10:45, made it to GZ under 3 hours as planned.

On our way up we passed a group of school kids apparently talking to another cacher who confirmed that there are groups going though for the next two week doing the Gentle Annie - Atiwhakatu loop. Managed to bump into Santa Claus - with his big long beard[xx(] we thought he resembled Santa. Another tramper advised us that we were going to encounter snow shortly - must be Santa - keeping eyes peeled for Rudolf & gang. The snowy stuff could explain why it was starting to cool down really fast. Finally getting closer and closer, up and up the stairs not sure if it was any easier but it was getting closer to the cache. As we got closer to GZ we started suddenly encountering late nights snow fall, then a bit more and a lot more, suddenly we were in a winter paradise.

Finally arrived at GZ, it didnt take too long to track down the cache as agcnz found it in the first spot that he looked. The moment was missed by me as I stood watching & admiring the scenery [:(!] Cartertonic stood back and watched us search for his cache chucking away at our efforts. Totally rapped to find an empty logpage and was glad to get a FTF for my 8500th cache, thanks for placing this cache here and for bringing us up to this lovely spot. Also thanks for putting on this great weather who would think it would snow the night before I decided to get this cache[:o)]. TFTC TNLNSL (8500) Yeetrees FTF craze also decided to come along as well.

Joint FTF with Yeetrees I had been keeping an eye on this cache since I returned to NZ a couple of weeks ago and noted no finds yet. I needed to regain a bit of fitness before trying it after too much inactivity while away - however a number of day walks in easier terrain helped with that and when Yeetrees asked me if I would like to come for a walk to Powell Hut I was ready and happy to do so. Cartertonic the cache owner was also happy to come so it was a pleasant and sociable walk. We set off at 10:45 and went via the Atiwhakatu track, up the River Ridge track (it's almost a kilometre shorter that way although rather rougher than the normal Gentle Annie track) and then up the new DOC stairway to Powell Hut which was partly new to me as I haven't been as far as that since the stairway was constructed. The weather forecast had indicated snow down to 1200 metres and it was dead right, as we approached GZ the snow became quite thick. I had some trepidation as to whether the cache would be accessible and I wanted to search for myself rather than rely on the CO to show me where it was. However I was lucky, there was no snow where GZ was and with excellent accurate coordinates the cache was a quick find in the first place checked. Signed the gratifyingly blank log, then on to Powell Hut for lunch with a leisurely time of 3 hours to get there. We did much better time back down, just over 2 hours from the hut to the carpark. Thanks to Cartertonic for the cache and to both him and Yeetrees for the amicable company on the walk.

And congratulations to Yeetrees for his 8500th, I'm gonna have to work hard to stay ahead!

Published